to unite both. It is a privilege to be nobly descended; it is no less honour to have so much merit that nobody asks whether you are so or not. Carnardes, whom Cicero dreaded, maintained there was no such thing as justice; and he supported his theory by such sophisms as these:that the condition of men is such, that if they have a mind to be just, they must act imprudently; that if they have a mind to act prudently, they must be unjust; and that it follows there can be no such thing as justice, because a virtue inseparable from a folly cannot be just. In our era there appears to be so much law, that there is no room for justice. Anyhow, a tender and very intelligent conscience is a disqualification for success. In the department of money-making, nothing is more common than for the weakest intellect to take the most extraordinary strides; or for the greatest merchants to be the most incapable of forming a conception of the principles by which commerce is developed. Every day prcduces its trading Croesus,-a model of arrogant inefficiency. An acute observer has remarked-The city abounds in men who have accumulated more than a plum, whose comprehension would not suffice to make a plumpudding. The law likewise boasts of its illustrious obscure persons, who by their skill in noting a brief, in cross-examining a witness, or applying precedents, have arrived at the top of fortune's tree, and filled the highest judicial stations, without more extent of intellect than might have served to count their fees, and keep their fingers out of the fire. Excellence in the arts has at no time been deemed in necessary connection with great powers of mind. Claude Loraine, before he commenced painting, had proved himself unable to become a decent pastry-cook, and was consigned to the church. One is often tempted to believe, in the great influx of small talents which now deluges us, that if half the books written, and pictures painted, were made into one great bonfire, it would be their shortest, easiest, and safest way of illuminating the world. Great actors-with the exception of Garrick-have rarely shewn ability beyond their art; and it is demonstrated, to win all arts by embodying the conceptions of others upon the stage, does not require the possession of a large mind. Musicians, obliged to devote their whole time to the attainment of practical skill, ought not to be taxed for the want of other acquirements; it is therefore the less reproach to them, that their claim to the admiration of their species, should so often be closely confined to the sphere of their professional activity. That the most eminent physicians have not always been the most intellectual, or the most learned of their class, and that many have arrived at extensive reputation on the very slenderest qualifications, is the less to be wondered at, because in this department, the purchaser is no judge of the commodity he demands; but it is equally true, that considerable skill, and much real knowledge in the medical art, do every now and then fall to the share of individuals whose intellectual calibre is singularly circumscribed; whilst great minds sometimes fail, simply because their temper is too fine for the more mechanical parts of their profession, or maybe, they have the fortiter in re, and but little of the suaviter in modo, the power of art without the show. Nothing more common than individuals travelling two hundred miles to consult some Magnus Apollo (whose sails are trimmed for any gale), when they have a more honest and talented man within gun-shot of their own door. Of course no good can come out of Nazareth, for is he not the carpenter's son? No really great man will ever be popular or rich. An honest man, to appear sensible in the eyes of the world, must become a scoundrel in his own. Propriety and decorum mean decoctions of stupidity and cunning, as the lessons of examples are-make money, advance yourself in appearances, get on in the world. Those who befriend genius when it is struggling for distinction, befriend the world, and their names should be held in remembrance. It is said the human heart is like a feather bed; it must be roughly handled, well shaken, and exposed to a variety of turns, to prevent its becoming hard or knotty. Look at this picture and on that-the difference between a tradesman in 1750 and 1857 : 1750. "Man busy in his shop; Wife, brewing malt and hop; 1857. "Man, at his country-seat; Boy, on the hunter fleet; What, then is to be inferred? that there is no merit in the world—that nothing but counterfeits are abroad—that this masquerading is general? Far from it. Few, if any, find their way to notoriety, without excellence of some kind; but of all merit, that of an enlarged and comprehensive mind is the rarest; and the wants of society raise to distinction infinitely more persons than nature has blessed with this qualification. The error to be avoided is that silly deference for great names which gives such undue weight to mere authority, and restrains men without a reputation from the fair exercise of an independent judgment. Justice, indeed, in the extreme, is sometimes extreme injustice. If (says a facetious author, whose road of life was not always carpeted with roses), you want to get a place for a relation, you must not delay it till he is born, but make application for him in utero, about the fifth or sixth month. The same with any smaller accommodation. There is great honour sometimes in being hated; and few persons have ever arrived at a more lofty eminence, or deserved more from the heartless ones of this sui generis kind of honour than our idol (for Ephraim will have idols) the late Rev. S. Smith. High-souled, independent, and sincere thinkers, are seldom or ever appreciated, and this apart from the odium theologicum. Religious impulses, like other impulses from the day of Pentecost to the present time, have always come over the world in waves: revivals are necessary to neutralise the frosty ones. are still blinded by selfish interests and solitary prejudices. Men of zero temperaments do not yet understand Sir Joshua Reynolds' favourite axiom, that genius consists principally in the comprehension of a whole. How few can distinguish filth from fragrance! Men We have yet to learn that the Christian religion is one of postures and ceremonies, of circumflexions, and genuflexions, of garments and vestures, of ostentation or parade; mint and cummin-neglecting the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and the every-day duties of life. Neither, on the other hand, can we countenance the forced hot-house plants, who adopt the recruiting and converting or diverting tactics of another "peculiar people;" where there is a superfluity of excitatious converts born in a tempest of passion, or under the inflammatory process of long-continued and protracted meetings of deeply-impassioned appeals to fears and feelings that never last long. Such live only in the high temperature of excitement, and languish under the dispensation of reason and truth. The Gospel takes in the whole man-head, heart, and hands. However, it is a far easier task to prune luxuriance, than to infuse life into a sickly plant. "A living dog is better than a dead lion." It has been asked-Can a theory be made out for morbid impulses ? It is well-known there are two contending parties in our constitution, mind and matter, spirit and body, which in their conflicts produce nearly all the ills flesh is heir to. The body is the chief assailant, and generally gains the victory. Look how our writers are influenced by bile, by spleen, by indigestion-the latter invariably brought about by causes over which they have an unlimited control; how families are ruined by an infraction of one, or perhaps all, of the physical laws, sapping the body, and of course the mental energy of their minds. But the spirit takes revenge in a guerilla or intestine war, which is incessantly kept up by these morbid impulses (generated by a morbid sensibility); an ambuscade is everlurking |